Eliza Starts a Rumor(3)
Olivia thought she’d have a few good urban years while Lily was still tiny before Spencer broached the topic of moving. But the first time she walked into the glass house that jutted out from the mountainous banks of the Hudson, perched at the perfect angle to see for miles in each direction, she wanted nothing more. By the time they saw the master bedroom, its windows set to capture every hue of the ever-changing foliage, the choppy currents, the passing ships, she was sold. Spencer was no fool. He knew his art history–loving wife would not be able to resist living within a Hudson Valley landscape any more than Monet at Giverny. When they returned to the city after seeing it for the first time, she stopped at the magazine stand and grabbed the latest issues of Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, and Country Living.
Olivia directed the men to hang what they confirmed was a painting over the living room fireplace. She suspected it was a piece from some up-and-coming artist she’d admired the last time she’d dragged Spencer through the galleries of Chelsea. She hadn’t imagined that he was even listening to her, let alone noting her favorites for an anniversary gift. Spencer did have a way of doing things that took her by surprise. It was one of the reasons she had fallen for him in the first place. Since she was a real planner, being with a free spirit like Spencer had taken her out of her comfort zone, and she liked it.
When the deliverymen removed the painting from the crate, revealing the canvas in all its glory, Olivia was . . . speechless. Spencer had had their wedding portrait reimagined as a modern version of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, with the two of them standing on a seashell in a calm sea.
Olivia was suddenly relieved that Spencer wasn’t home so she could take it in unobserved. To say Olivia wasn’t a fan of the trend of repurposing classic paintings into pop art was an understatement, but Spencer didn’t know that. And, she reasoned, there was no denying the romance of her husband’s gift. It wasn’t what she’d expected, but it was infinitely more personal. The early Renaissance painter’s rendition of the goddess of love had been a highlight the first time Olivia had dragged Spencer through a gallery—the Uffizi in Florence—and the gift was obviously a loving homage to their Italian meet-cute.
Olivia and Spencer had met in their junior year abroad on a train in Italy. She was traveling with her suite mates from Wellesley and was buried in a novel, A Room with a View, which she had chosen in part because it was set in Italy. She was just the kind of girl who would match her book with her travels. She didn’t notice the dark-haired, blue-eyed American across the aisle watching her. In all fairness, there was often someone looking at Olivia.
Olivia was very beautiful. She wasn’t perfect; her nose was a bit long, her ears could probably have done with being pinned back when she was a child, but she had that thing—that thing that propelled the likes of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and Julia Roberts into the spotlight. Like them, her beauty seemed to emanate from her smile and continue down her perfectly tanned frame and coltlike legs.
Growing up in New York City, Olivia had felt as if the boys were everywhere that she was. One smile, and there was never one who didn’t ask for her number, who didn’t call, who didn’t call again—but more importantly, never one who she cared enough for to call back. The attention overwhelmed her, so much so that when it came time to go to college, she only applied to all-girls schools. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men, but she liked books more and she knew she would get to the men part eventually. Eventually came on that train to Florence.
When Olivia returned to her seat after a bathroom break, she found Spencer sitting in it, refusing to get up until she agreed to accompany him for a drink in the bar car. There was nothing especially distinctive about Spencer. In Olivia’s world, handsome, educated, wealthy, sporty guys with an entertaining undercurrent of immaturity were a common entity. There was really no one reason why Spencer had succeeded where others had failed. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was Florence, maybe it was the romance in the book she was reading at the time—the story of a somewhat serious young woman falling for a free-spirited young man—or maybe a combination of them all: a perfect storm.
She went for the drink, then dinner, then the rest of her time in Florence followed by a sunflower-flanked drive down the Tuscan coast to Porto Ercole. She was not one to deviate from a plan, nor to ditch her friends, but somehow she got caught up in Spencer’s deep blue eyes and the way he undressed her with them. By the time they reached the coast, she had fallen in love for the very first time. And, as it turned out, Olivia loved being in love. She especially loved the promise of it—being “taken” felt quite satisfying on many levels.
After their semester-long European courtship, they dated long distance throughout their senior years. She traveled to visit him at Duke for his formals; he met her in Boston, where they barely left their hotel room. By graduation they were pinned, two years later engaged, and six years later inhabiting their new home in Hudson Valley, with Olivia staring at the campy wedding portrait while their baby slept soundly in her nursery.
The two men stepped back to see if the painting was straight.
“What do you think?” one asked, bringing her back to the moment.
She took a beat. It was a funny combination of classic and modern, like her.
“I love it,” Olivia decided, right there on the spot.
“It’s a real nice picture, lady,” one of them said with sincere appreciation.